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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25021450">where the wildest things are hidden</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticalmuddle/pseuds/mysticalmuddle'>mysticalmuddle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff and Angst, Huddling For Warmth, Incest, Literary Chicken Soup, Sharing a Bed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:07:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,643</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25021450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysticalmuddle/pseuds/mysticalmuddle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>T’was Arya that was cold, her body and her heart. And while her body would warm, if she stood by the hearth long enough or clambered onto the bed and curled to Ghost’s other side, her poor heart could not be easy.</p><p>Jon was well, he <i>was</i>, but she need be sure—</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jon Snow/Arya Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>where the wildest things are hidden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabacoychanel/gifts">tabacoychanel</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Page Divider by Clker-Free-Vector-Images, Pixabay.com</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr<br/>
Is lined within with the finest fur,<br/>
So the stoney-walled, snow roofed house<br/>
Of every squirrel and mole and mouse<br/>
Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull’s feather,<br/>
Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together<br/>
With balsam and juniper, dry and curled,<br/>
Sweeter than anything else in the world.</p>
</blockquote><br/><h3>where the wildest things are hidden</h3><p>Arya woke, her heart thundering in her chest and her body taut as a bowstring under the heavy weight of her bedding. She had a single blurry moment, the span of two pained heartbeats, where the dream chased her into the waking world, ash and smoke and screaming that as she wakened further became the sound of the wind howling down across the keep and threatened to tear the very stones of the walls apart. </p><p>Her fire was out again, her breath smoking up the air as she squirmed deeper into the furs, listening to the clicking clatter of the window shutters as they fought to stay on their nails and hinges.</p><p>The lack of fire, though it made the air bitterly cold on her face and in her lungs, did not worry her. It soothed instead, that reassuring darkness that fell across her room instead of the bloody flickering shades of her dreaming.</p><p>And then she breathed in again, the fear-sweat behind her ears and down the side of her neck quick to chill, and the cold slammed across her like a physical blow. She retreated, flipping the bedclothes over her head, to huddle in her own sparse body heat where it had warmed the blankets.</p><p>Her room was chosen for the window, and the lack of ledge or roof below it, how difficult it would be to climb down to it from the roof above, and the high stacked chimneys from the kitchens obscuring all the sight-lines from any man who’d try his luck with bow or bolt. Those had been her chief concerns in picking, when Jon had lead her up the stairs before he’d let any of the others up, pointed to the door of his own room, and said, <i>Any other along this hall, aye?</i></p><p>She hadn’t realized until it was too late that her own chimney was poorly cleaned and even worse repaired. No, not until that first night, when all her new things were already brought up and arranged in a neat tidy way that pleased her, Nymeria was done snuffling about their new den, and Arya had set another log on the fire to keep it blazing as they slept.</p><p>She’d woken to the same cold, tempered by Nymeria’s reassuring bulk beside her, and in the morning had stuck her head halfway up the chimney itself. Arya had never played at being a chimney-sweep, but she had a keen mind for mechanics and did her best. But it was beyond her, and she was a little embarrassed by it, not checking such a thing first. The flue was damaged in some way she could not tell, and she couldn’t keep a fire strong in the hearth even half the night.</p><p>By then, all the other rooms had been filled, so Arya made do, waking herself at certain hours to restart the fire, or keeping Nymeria close, or creeping from her room into Sansa’s, or Rickon’s, or Daenerys’.</p><p>If Nymeria was here, they could share all the delicious heat that a girl and an enormous wolf could put out, settled as they were under a mound of covers, and Arya might soothe herself with that and sleep again. But her man-eater wolf now turned her nose up at any meat that the butcher might offer her; it was enough of a relief that she’d bring down deer for herself instead of picking any odd-smelling man that she didn’t like the look of, that Arya could forgive her the abandonment that those hunting trips meant.</p><p>Even the thought of Nymeria soothed, if not the actual heat of her. Arya dipped a moment into her mind, soft and strange with dreaming where Nymeria was wedged under the roots of some oak tree, and let it slow the thundering panic of her heart.</p><p>If it was just the cold now, Arya thought as she curled into a ball and tucked her nose under the wool blanket, she might go across and down the corridor, and burrow into the next warmest place, between Daenerys and Missandei and Irri and Jhiqui, all of them curled into each other like pups in a pile.</p><p>But it wasn’t the cold that had woken her, or the wind, or at least not those two things alone. It was half-dream and half-memory that sent her heart thudding so uncomfortably. </p><p>It would only take her a moment to go and see. Just that, and she would do it so quietly that no one need know, then Arya would be free to find some warmer place to nest in.</p><p>She buried her face into the bedclothes, thick with the scent of drifting smoke and musky furs and the soap Arya preferred, and gave herself only so much time as it took for her nose to warm again.</p><p>She was so jealous of Nymeria, with her thick winter coat all grown in! Her nose warmed, aching a little, and she rubbed at it. </p><p>And then she rolled herself from the bedding, clutching up the heavy bearskin fur that rested above the others, and wrapped herself in it as she made for the door with cold-stinging feet.</p><p>Socks next time, she thought, shifting foot to foot on the freezing stone as she lifted the bar and worked the door latch. And then in the hall, which had not the benefit of a fire at all, only two torches and them long ago burned down, and she could not muffle the yelp that burst from her throat.</p><p><i>Boots</i>, next time! She hurried down the hall, to the door that was never barred, and managed to still her chattering teeth long enough to slip inside silently, like a shadow. But even at her quietest, which she wasn’t now with the bearskin rustling and her bare feet shushing on the floor and her whole body a-tremble, she wasn’t quiet enough to keep from waking Ghost, who perked up his head from where it rested on the pillow beside Jon’s.</p><p>“Shh,” Arya whispered, but just seeing his red eyes catch the firelight and flare with brightness in the dark soothed her. Jon was well, if Ghost could simply lie and sleep and dream his own strange wolf dreams.</p><p>So there truly wasn’t a need to creep as quiet and soft-footed as a mouse, across the rush mats and around to the far side of the bed. Ghost was loose and easy with slumber, so of course Jon was well.</p><p>But the dream, the memory, still clung to her as bitter-cold and biting as the chilled air. Jon knew how to lay a fire well, seeing to his own rooms, to his own den, as he did to keep the maids out of it, and the air was warmer here.</p><p>T’was Arya that was cold, her body and her heart. And while her body would warm, if she stood by the hearth long enough or clambered onto the bed and curled to Ghost’s other side, her poor heart could not be easy.</p><p>Jon was well, he <i>was</i>, but she need be sure—</p><p>As the firelight fell upon his face and his breath moved gently the curl that hung long, just there across his cheek, she had to take hold of the bedpost, she was so weak with sudden relief. Jon, with his eyes shut and his nose red from the chill and the fine lines at his brow—from the war and his brief kingship—now smoothed out from sleeping.</p><p>She felt breathless with it, shuddering and turning to rest her forehead to her hand where it grasped the post. A year on now, and she still could not shake the memory-dream, the moment in the forge where Melisandre had lifted the sword and Arya had almost not been quick enough.</p><p>She couldn’t stop the noise from escaping her, softer now than the yelp she had made before, but still a sound in the peaceful air, swallowed up slowly by the silence. Breathless, almost a sob, almost a sigh, and she stilled like a rabbit in the brush, then withdrew to the thick cover of shadows as Jon woke a little, stirring and passing a hand over his face as he turned to his back.</p><p>He needn’t know, Arya thought to herself, as she did as her old masters had taught her. In the dark, she made herself a mouse, a dream, an outline of stone against the wall. He’d sleep again, soon enough, and she might go back to her room, reassured enough that only the cold would make her hands tremble as she stoked her fire up again.</p><p>She clutched the bearskin closer, stilled her chilled shivers by force, and it was not her finest work, surely in Braavos it would earn her the crack of the wooden stick to her palm or back or cheek, but it was enough, he—</p><p>Passed his hand over his face again, then pushed himself upright, the bedclothes falling down to rest upon his lap. Ghost was lay back down, Arya thought to herself. He’ll settle in a moment, and I might leave.</p><p>Jon sniffled, knocked the clinging curl from his cheek, and said hoarsely, “I know you’re there.”</p><p>Her heart, her poor abused heart, made motion in her chest like it would crawl up her throat and out her mouth and across the freezing floor right to his hand. His hand was held out, ready to receive it, as he said in that rough voice, “Come here, Arya. It’s alright.”</p><p>Her breath caught, small and fragile in her lungs, and cold. Gods but the air was so cold, and it would be warm there, tucked and curled into Jon’s side as she had slept so many times when she was small!</p><p>But the cold was not what froze her burning toes, her numb feet to the floor. She wasn’t a child any longer, and Jon was not that sweet green boy who’d made her a thousand dens and nests out of his bedclothes and pulled her to him in the dark. She said, after a moment and fearing he would catch cold with the covers tumbled down as they were off his shoulders, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”</p><p>He frowned into the dark. If any eyes could see her, pretend as she was to be a shadow, it would be those same Stark eyes. But they didn’t settle on her face, only blinked away sleep-sand. </p><p>“You didn’t,” he lied. “Will you not step into the light? I cannot see you.”</p><p>“I would go,” Arya tried at him. “The hour is late, and—”</p><p>And she could not say that he would be busy on the morrow. No one was busy with anything but sleeping and healing, these last long dark days.</p><p>There did not even seem to be a morrow; the long winter’s night lingering as it did, even after the fighting was over and the great armies broken into small groups and spread across the holdfasts and keeps of the North. Bran thought it might last a month or two longer, the lack of sun even when the maesters consulted their water-clocks and proclaimed the time firmly as noon.</p><p>The rest was good for them, those that could find it. Arya was not one. Her own sleep was broken with the nightmarish dreams and the odd hours; she spent most of her time in the hall, where there were always men awake now, with no sun to guide them, though the others tried as they could to keep to the clocks.</p><p>The longing for sleep was there, the wolfish want to crawl into some small dark place and be warm, restful. But the war had driven her panicked dreams away, all exhaustion and no time to think, and now that she was in Winterfell again, sleeping so close to where it had happened, they came rushing back unbearably.</p><p>“The hour is late,” Jon said to her. “Not that I have a clock to know it. Come here, little sister.”</p><p>She shivered at the name, shivered more violently at the cold once that first tremble made the shaking start again. Arya kept her jaw hard to keep her teeth from chattering as cold air snaked up her bare legs, but Jon knew her too well.</p><p>He frowned into the dark, then shoved aside his covers and swung his legs out to stand.</p><p>“O-oh, don’t,” Arya cried, not wanting him to be cold, and t’was all he needed, that sound from her mouth, to cross the room and grab her up solidly.</p><p>She could have fought her way out of it, but even with the tussling he was only like to get colder. “Hush,” Jon said, almost laughing. “Hush, let me just—” and it was easier to do it, to let him heft her, then toss her across the mattresses with a casual carelessness that had her landing pressed against Ghost and both of them irritated by it.</p><p>“You n-n-n-needn’t,” she tried again, but her teeth clacked together almost too hard to get the words out, and her breath came <i>huff-huff-huff</i> with the force of the cold. The lure of the bed, warm from the wolf and warm from Jon’s body, was too great.</p><p>“I thought so,” Jon said, a little smug, when she huddled herself up small instead of crawling over Ghost and making for the door. She made a face at him, and then a rude gesture when he only grinned, unfairly charming though he had just woken.</p><p>“Just f-f-for a minute,” Arya forced out, cupping her hands and blowing into them, the scarred right one especially tight and hard to bend.</p><p>But Jon, as he crossed the room, said smugly, “We’ll see about that. Get under those covers before I am forced to take you down to the kitchen fires and thaw you out like a side of meat.”</p><p>She laughed. Arya could not help it; it hiccuped out of her in jerky squeaks. It did not matter, truly, that she might steal one last night with him. </p><p>And Arya, so lucky to have been quick enough in the heat of the forge, so lucky to have the longest night in the world left to steal, that she might curl into him and know there would be no morning bells to waken them.</p><p>Ghost bent his massive head to wash at her hair with his tongue and Jon crawled up next to her, tugging the covers out and spreading them over both their bodies. </p><p>“That’s better,” he said. He was telling her, not asking, in his superior way that made Arya want to rub snowmelt and slush through his hair. He caught the look on her face and grinned bigger, then tumbled himself down to lie beside her with a force that sent her jolting.</p><p>“It’s been a long while since night ghasts sent you scurrying to my bed,” he said as he tucked the blankets closer around her with great satisfaction. </p><p>The heat was bringing life back to her fingertips, her nose, her toes, in a hot prickling rush, like how snow looked falling before torch-light. “Ah-ah-aye,” she agreed, curling into herself and now Jon could see her face and she could see his, his frown returned.</p><p>When he cupped her cheek with his hand, it was like he held a hot coal to her skin. She yelped and jerked away, turning to rub her face to the furs as Jon said, “You’re freezing! How long were you standing there, when you might have just come under the covers and been warm?”</p><p>“N-not long,” and the words hardly did not quake at all. Jon was urging her to turn, to rest upon her other side, to cuddle into Ghost. Jon followed her motion once she did, tucked himself to the shape of her body and drew her feet to rest between his legs, his chest strong to her back and his arms about her, his burning hands on hers.</p><p>They ached, her fingers, and he would not let her pull away. “That hurts!” she cried, trying to escape the touch.</p><p>“Better you complain now,” Jon said to her ear, amused but also a little wroth as he chafed at her hands with his own. He paid special attention to her right one, digging his fingers deep into the meat of her palm, working the thick scar there, until her fingers quit trembling. “The complaining will be much worse if you lose them.”</p><p>“You’ve seen frostbite, stupid,” Arya said and tried to squirm away. His arm was like steel about her belly; she gave up and lay there, saying, “They only take the tips. I will be like Davos, and have a scribe because I cannot hold my pens.”</p><p>“Aye, that’s so much better,” Jon said, his breath hot on the side of her face. He felt her huff and blew a stream of air against her ear until she could not help but giggle at the tickling touch of it.</p><p>“I’ll wear <i>your</i> finger-bones in a pouch,” he went on when she was done laughing, “and whenever you question my advice, I will take that pouch and chuck it at your head—”</p><p>“I’m faster,” Arya protested. “It’s not like it will hit me, and you can only throw something the once before I catch it, and—”</p><p>“And you are still a wretched little chit,” Jon said. He let go her hands, warmer now if a little achy, and drummed his fingers over her side until Arya was breathless with laughter, big hoarse barks of it that had Ghost giving up his place on the pillows to stand and huff down at them and disembark for his rug near the fire.</p><p>They tussled for a moment after that, like they had when they were children. But Jon was much bigger than her now, that promised growth of her own coming to Arya late and little, and she could not get away from his hands as he tickled her. She laughed until her sides ached, her whole body straining with it, and her heart mad in her chest.</p><p>Finally she levered her legs out from between Jon’s and rolled away, putting space between them. She was panting almost, bursting inside with big happy bubbles as thoroughly as a boiling pot, and when Jon reached out for her and said, “Come here,” she snapped playfully at his fingers and said back, “Shan’t!”</p><p>“Arya,” he said, his mouth a big curved smile. “Little sister,” in that low coaxing voice that he had now, a voice just for her, and she shivered with it, a hot stroke of pleasure down her spine.</p><p>“No,” she said again, not because she didn’t want to, but because she wanted to be coaxed. He’d gotten her into his den, the lure of his company and his body heat too strong, but now she was warm and reassured. She might leave at any time, Arya thought, just to vex him. And the sudden wicked idea came over her that if he wanted keep her there, he need work a little harder at it.</p><p>“You’re not the king anymore,” she said sweetly. “Can’t tell me what to do!”</p><p>She was not the only one who felt so strangely playful; Jon pushed himself up on an arm and gave her a slow, thoughtful look. But his mouth betrayed him. He couldn’t stop the smile, the edge of his teeth, as he leaned a little closer and said, “Can’t I? I am still the elder of us two. And any good little sister need listen to her brother.”</p><p>“And any good brother,” Arya said back, almost breathless with something, some clinging emotion that chased away all thoughts of smoking flesh and towering flames and steaming blood, “should be a little sweeter, when all his poor sister has come to do is help him keep warm in the night.”</p><p>“Sweeter!” Jon scoffed. “If I am any sweeter to you, the air would turn to honey between us. Come here,” and when she slipped back a little further, into the warm space Ghost had left, and made to burrow herself in and stay, he lunged.</p><p>“No!” she cried, giggling, trying to shove him off, but he caught her up and dragged her in until she was tucked under the bulk of his body, her cheek to the pillow and his chest against her back, and his arm about her as he pressed his face to her hair.</p><p>“Sweeter,” he said again, a rumbled laugh that she felt through her whole body as the heat of him burning on her through the thin linen of her nightgown.</p><p>She was warm now, tucked under him and the good heavy weight of him pressing her down against the mattresses, the straw ticking, the ropes strung through the wooden bed-frame, until she felt as snug as a little creature curled in its winter den. She sighed, slow and deep from her chest, and shut her eyes a moment.</p><p>The heat melted into her bones, until even the wind howling down against the walls and moaning into the chimney seemed so far away as to be a dream. She was drowsing, almost dozing, when Jon slid off her a little, pulling her to be sheltered better against his chest and one of his arms under her head and one about her middle.</p><p>It woke her a little, just enough. She peeled her eyes open, looking at the play of the firelight across Ghost’s back, and said, “How’d you know I was there, before? I was so quiet.”</p><p>He snorted like a horse and splayed his hand out against her belly. “I smelled you,” he said to her ear and held her still when she squawked and tried to pull away.</p><p>“I washed before bed!” she protested, trying to turn, but he kept her well in place, his chin on her shoulder so she could feel his laughing. She let him; she did not want to move, not really. She put her hand to his, their matching hands, and twined their fingers together, cuddling her cheek closer to his skin.</p><p>“I scented you,” Jon said again after a moment. “In the air. Why else would Daenerys waste her hair oil on you when she knows it will not tame your curls, if not to give me early warning when you come sneaking?”</p><p>Arya thought that if he had a hand free, he’d tug the end of her night braid. She knew he didn’t like it when Daenerys fussed with her hair; she kicked her heel gently to his shin to chide him.</p><p>“Liar,” Arya said. Her braid lay over her shoulder and against his arm, the pillow, the sheets. It curved down her neck, heavy and cool, and she took her hand off Jon’s to undo the end of it like he wanted her to. He breathed out, satisfied, as she combed out all the plaiting that she could reach.</p><p>“How?” she pressed when she was done, almost a whine, tossing her ribbon away. “I want to know, tell me, tell me <i>please</i>—”</p><p>“Does it matter?” he asked. </p><p>“It does if I want to sneak on you again,” Arya huffed. He dragged her closer, his hand firm on her belly, and rocked her a little, thoughtfully.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Jon said at last. “Does it truly matter? I cannot say. I dreamed it, or heard your step, or your breath, or your heart. I always know when you are there.”</p><p>She chewed at her lip, considering it. He truly might not know, Arya thought. But he did it every time, finding her out in all her disguises. Anyone else might slide their eyes right past her when she turned herself into a piece of the wall, but not Jon. </p><p>Once she had even been dressed as an ash girl, going to attend the fire in the council chamber to test how easy some other killer might get in, and when she rose from her kneel at the hearth, black under her fingernails and cinders all over her borrowed apron, Jon had caught her eye and winked.</p><p>“Bet you don’t,” she lied, just to rile him a little, but she hadn’t thought it through; his hand went to her ribs again threatening.</p><p>“Don’t I?” he asked in her ear, low and dangerous. “Don’t I always know you?”</p><p>She couldn’t take any more laughter and she knew he would do it, would tickle her until she was crying from laughter, and then grin down at her red face and tease her that she needn’t be so sad.</p><p>Jon didn’t like her to ignore him. He grew impatient with her thinking, her silence, and made to dig his fingers in. She squawked and kicked back at him to stall him, and he paused, tense with anticipation behind her.</p><p>“Don’t I know you?” he demanded pleasantly. “Say it. Say I do, better than anyone—”</p><p>“Fine,” she groaned out at last and knocked his hand away. “You know me for true, for ever and ever, and I will never be clever enough to sneak on you.”</p><p>“Aye, and you had best remember it,” Jon said. He did tug at her hair then, the hand over her ribs coming up to tangle with the loose ends of it. “You do not have to sneak if you want to see me.”</p><p>“Might be I do, if you’re busy,” Arya said back. She yawned, muffling the sound to his arm. Jon was a comfortable pillow, he put out heat like a furnace, his scent was familiar and good. He was a good addition to a winter den.</p><p>“No,” and Jon said it back at once. “Never. I am not king anymore; I needn’t listen to every lord that comes wailing my way with some complaint. I am at your service now, little sister, and no other’s.”</p><p>Arya hummed a little. She shouldn’t like the thought so much, though she did. Now she might come and take Jon away at any time, stealing his attention when before she had to wait patiently and even then sometimes did not get it. Neither of them had liked that, she thought, though it was just one more ugly demand of the war.</p><p>Behind her, he pressed his face to her hair and sighed, deep and slow and easy. “You’re thinking of some mischief,” he said, and gave her hair a little tug that sent a shower of tingles through her scalp. “Aye, don’t try to deny it. I can tell.”</p><p>She hadn’t been, but Arya <i>could</i>, if he wanted to liven up the dark with a little merry-making. She kissed his arm and drew his hand back to rest on her belly and said, “You’ll have to help me anyway. Since you are mine to command now.”</p><p>He groaned, but it was only play. “And you cannot tell me not to,” Arya said, warming to the idea. “And if you do, I shan’t listen, whether you are older than me or not.”</p><p>“You have never listened,” Jon agreed. His voice was low and soft; he only spoke to her that way and Arya liked it too much, curled in the soft dark with him as she was, his hand on her, and his heartbeat solid against her back.</p><p>“You never listen to me,” Jon said again, “but you forget I am bigger than you, and a better fighter—”</p><p>“Oh you are not!” Arya cried, outraged.</p><p>But he said over her, loudly, “—so I will just have to make you.”</p><p>Embarrassment rushed over her, then a wave of hot wanting that only encouraged the embarrassment along. She shivered again, through her whole body. From the cold, Arya told herself, and not that he was bigger than her and mayhaps a little faster, and certainly not from his breath in her ear as he said to her, “I will just keep you here with me, and spare the castle your bad behavior, and if you are very good with me, I might let you out of our den come spring.”</p><p>Gods but her face was burning and her heart frantic in her chest. She hid herself in the bend of his arm, holding her breath until she was sure she would not say something stupid at the picture, the beautiful picture of it. She wanted to spend all winter tucked here soft and sweet next to Jon, never cold or unhappy or uncertain, and him with her always.</p><p>Her throat was dry when she’d mastered herself. Jon’s own breathing was easy, steady. She said, making her voice light and wincing at the little catch in it, “That does not sound like being at my service.”</p><p>But Jon only huffed out a little laugh and said, hot breath on the back of her neck, “Doesn’t it, little sister?”</p><p>She hid her face and shrugged a little, then murmured, “I like this, lying here with you. A little. So for now it’s enough.” She considered a moment, then said, “But might be that later you’ll need help me dig some of the sleeping frogs out of the moat.”</p><p>“As you like,” and he laughed a little. “But, Arya,” and now he spoke slowly, hesitantly, “because I am at my service, will you tell me what brought you here so late?” And his arm about her went tighter a bare moment before she tried to pull away. </p><p>“You’re always welcome here,” Jon said, low in her ear, as if she was stupid enough to think she wasn’t, when it was for her, when she was the reason that he left his door unbarred. He pressed his face to her neck a moment, her shoulder, and went on softly, “Always, Arya. I mean it.”</p><p>“I <i>know</i> that, stupid,” she said. He was too strong and he knew her too well; she wouldn’t be able to kick away, and even if she did, then what? Go back to her cold dark room and her cold empty bed and her cold false dreams?</p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” she said, instead of fleeing. “I do not wish to speak of it—” </p><p>And even in Jon’s bed, his whole body warm against hers, she could not escape the thought of it, memory of it, the fire and the sword and the pain, the scream she had let slip from her throat on the strength of the waif saying to her once, <i>There is no shame in screaming, if it helps the work get done</i>. </p><p>The only satisfaction Arya had of it was this, the thick slide of Arya’s sword into the red witch’s belly as the smoking steel Melisandre wielded fell aside untouched.</p><p>“I don’t want to,” Arya said, and it made her feel slimy to do it, like someone had rubbed pond-muck into her hair, slicked down her nightgown with it. But she could not speak on it, how much it shamed her that she had almost been too slow. So she said, the guilt cold in her chest, “You said you’d never force me to a thing, if I did not want it. You promised.”</p><p>The steel had fallen away mostly untouched, Arya thought as her hand ached with sense memory. Dry of the blood that should have tempered it, but still sticky with Arya’s touch, where her hand had shoved the white-hot blade away and it had stolen from Arya all the skin of her fingers and palm and a layer of the meat in payment.</p><p>Jon had promised her, and Arya <i>knew</i> that he hadn’t meant this, letting her curl up small like some wounded creature alone in the dark, clutching the memory to herself. He’d meant the scroll he had tossed aside in the fire a single heartbeat after she’d said, desperately, <i>No, I will not wed</i>. </p><p>“That’s cruel,” Jon told her now in her ear. “Turning that on me, when you know I would share this with you. Anything that hurts you, I said that <i>too</i>. Anything that hurts you need take a share of my flesh as well.”</p><p>“I cannot!” and it split the cold air. Arya swallowed down by force anything that might come after it. She couldn’t, she couldn’t. The words would choke her; they’d turn to maggots in her mouth.</p><p>Never mind what Jon had said, there in the maester’s tower and both of them white-faced as Arya struggled not to break the bones in Jon’s hand. She’d clutched at his fingers so tightly with her sword hand as Fat Sam Tarly cleaned the other, the burn, and smeared a pungent salve on it.</p><p>Nearly broke his fingers, and when she had reached for the table edge instead, Jon had not let her.</p><p>Jon took his hurt already, and Arya wouldn’t see it touch him again, wouldn’t see her near-failing haunt him as it did her. Hers was not the only body on which the wound still lingered. It had been in Jon’s eyes as Melisandre took the blade from the forge-fire, barehanded and unhurt, and it had been in his eyes as she spoke between Jon and Daenerys, hedging her guess until the very last moment as to who Azor Ahai was hidden inside like so much rotting yolk in an old egg.</p><p>Daenerys was the one with the dragons. That was it, in the end. She’d walked into the flames and come out pulling new-old magic with her, a deep draw that Bran said had opened the world to an age of magic and heroes again.</p><p>Daenerys had her dragons, and Jon was just a bastard Stark. It did not matter that he was everything to Arya, hidden as she had been, so still and silent in the darkest corner of the forge. </p><p>Some days Arya felt that she was the only one who held Jon above everything, anything. It could drive her to madness, if she thought on it long enough, how no one else seemed to see the goodness, the steadfastness, the <i>trueness</i> that poured off him like light off the sun itself.</p><p>In the forge, her heart had crouched like an ugly croaking toad in her throat. Arya had seen and she had known and if t’was the price of saving the world, Jon Snow’s death, she would not have paid it.</p><p>And Arya was the one with her hand on her sword; Arya was the battlements that tither-man need pass to take his due. She had stood as strong as the walls of Winterfell itself in her resolution, as quick as a snake, quicker than a snake as she moved.</p><p>Her hand had struck away the white-hot blade, her own sword quick to find Melisandre’s chest, and the air had splintered with their twin screams, pain and rage from them both.</p><p>And Jon had braced up Arya, when the pain would have sent her staggered to her knees, and his voice had been distant and far and so sweet, that he could still look and breathe and speak as the world went grey around the edges.</p><p>And then he had left, and it was Daenerys with her arms about Arya’s shoulders, and her bloodrider Jhogo who’d picked Arya up when her knees gave and Jhogo who’d bore her out into the freezing brilliant light, shouting as he went in Dothraki for someone to bring a maegi, an herbswoman, a healer.</p><p>Arya had not been there to see the quick furious strike of Longclaw that parted Melisandre from her head, but she’d noticed through her pain the arc of blood drying on Jon’s tabard as he came back to her and put his hands to her face and shouted himself hoarse.</p><p>She remembered well how she seemed to be the only one to read the panic there under the outraged fury, as Tormund had wrestled Jon away.</p><p>And she remembered how she had turned away from Jon’s face, unable to bear the naked look upon it as he lost his grasp of her shoulders and was dragged back, still demanding as if it were torn from him, <i>Never ever do that again, do you hear me? Never! Never!</i></p><p>Too, and a little bitterly in the moment that Melisandre’s betrayal and Arya’s hand had been for nought, Arya had seen how Daenerys, as white as snow the snow in the open yard, had pressed her forehead to Sansa’s for a bare moment and they’d shared a single shaky breath.</p><p>Melisandre was a fool, to think that she could threaten Jon and live, and her god was a liar if those dancing leaping flames had told the red witch that Jon was Daenerys’ Nissa Nissa. </p><p>And truly, it had not mattered at all in the end! It was enough to make Arya endlessly wroth. T’was Davos with the burning sword, smelt from the charred iron clinging to the wooden ship-sides that had washed up still oily with spent wildfire upon the shore of King’s Landing. </p><p>Tempered with the heart of what he loved the most, the sea and his sons. </p><p>So it had not come to pass, that horrible thing. Jon’s heart had not split and smoked around the steel and Arya’s burn had healed cleanly, her hand still giving her good use, and so she did not know why she could not stop remembering it, in those endless false dreams.</p><p>She thought on it, the dream, the memory, as she watched Jon’s fire dance and leap and crackle over the logs he’d stacked so skillfully in the hearth. As she felt Jon’s heartbeat as he waited behind her, patient and gentle and refusing to yield. And her own heart still clogged her throat, as she turned over in Jon’s arms and pressed her forehead to his, so close that his face became a blur.</p><p>A smudge of night-paled skin and dark hair and grey Stark eyes, familiar even as that, as closeness turned him to an ink-sketch smeared before it was dry.</p><p>Jon was beloved even as that.</p><p>She could not tell him and she could not keep it from him and it was <i>Jon</i>. Arya felt a fool. They did not need words. She took her scarred hand and placed it to his chest and felt his breath catch and shudder the moment she touched him there.</p><p>He made to move away and she grabbed at his nightshirt to still him. T’was her that broke the look between them. She pressed her face to his neck and melted with relief when he rolled them over, rolled onto her and blanketed her with his entire body.</p><p>In that warm dark space he made for her, all of him as strong above her as the very roof of her keep, she could at last croak out, “I cannot stop dreaming. If I was a moment slower, if I knew her true plan a second too late—”</p><p>He said darkly, vicious but not at her, “Would that I killed her a thousand times instead of one. Would that I brought you her head and pegged it for you on the battlements—”</p><p>She did not want to think on Melisandre anymore. In a heartbeat’s change, it seemed odd and ill to bring the shade of her there, into their den.</p><p>Arya clutched at Jon’s shoulders, shushing him before he could work up a true rage, and urged him press down heavier on her. He fell silent and spread his body over hers like a blanket, like a fur, only so much warmer. She closed her eyes to the firelight and touched his hair, his warm cheeks, his living face, and felt his heart crashing in his chest just where it rested above hers.</p><p>Warm; he kept her so warm. It seemed the earlier night was washed entirely away in the heat of his body. She thought she could sleep like this, deep and for a long time. And it would be a nice sleep, empty of anything but good dreams, both of them resting until the sun crept back up to warm the world again.</p><p>She could have this with him, Arya thought. There was nothing left to part them. She could have this endless night, and the next and the next for ever, curled under him in his bed, all the furs smelling of him and her, as familiar as breathing.</p><p>“I want to sleep here,” she announced, and pushed at his shoulder, knocking him back a little to his side again and turning onto hers, and squirming about until they were laying close and she could press her ear to his heart. </p><p>He put his hand to her hair and loosed the rest of her braid. “I told you,” he said hoarsely, as he put his other arm around her and held her closer, “I am always at your service. Whatever you like.”</p><p>She was so tired, and even if she dreamed that ugly dream, she might wake and feel at once that Jon was still alive beside her. “It’s cold,” she said plaintively and wormed in close as she could. “I cannot keep a fire in my room. There’s something wrong with the chimney flue.”</p><p>“And of course you just stayed there, freezing,” Jon grumbled. “Stubborn little thing. Stay here every night, then. <i>My</i> fire’s good and strong.” He paused a moment, then said, “No, not just the nights. Stay here always. There’s no day anymore to stir you up anymore and you hardly sleep enough.”</p><p>“A lucky guess,” Arya said and sniffled. His hand was warm on her back, her waist, the curve of her hip. </p><p>“Ask any man,” Jon said back. “Ask your mirror; I could hide about a thousand of your assassins in the shadows under your eyes.”</p><p>Arya considered a moment, then told him tartly, “That was <i>not</i> being sweet to me.”</p><p>He barked a laugh, then put a hand to her chin and tilted her face up. And then he kissed her, a hot press of his lips to her cheeks and the hollows under her eyes, and her brow. And then, finally, to her mouth, sweet and chaste, almost indifferent as any cousin-kin might kiss another.</p><p>“Was that sweet enough for you?” Jon demanded as he pulled away. The firelight cast his face in red and made him flush. Arya’s own face was warm with the heat of his body so close, with the furs.</p><p>“No,” she said petulantly. She tugged at his shirt, then reached her scarred hand for his, twining their fingers together. And then she waited, face tilted up.</p><p>After a moment, Jon bent down again, and Arya shut her eyes in stunned anticipation. But all he did was tell her with his breath hot on her lips, “Aye, alright. But don’t think I’ve forgotten your poor manners earlier. Say <i>please</i> first.”</p><p>She dug her elbow into his side as she rolled herself over, driving the air out of his lungs in a huge gust. But it did not stop him from laughing, big barks as she cocooned herself in the furs and stole all the blankets.</p><p>“Arya,” he said at last when he could talk without braying like the ass he was, “Arya,” and he tugged at her bedclothes.</p><p>“No,” she told him, cuddling her cheek to the pillow to hide the smile she couldn’t quite stop from coming. “No, you may have the sheet, and whatever space near the hearth that Ghost is willing to give you.”</p><p>But he didn’t listen and it was colder without him, even with the mountain of furs and the fire. So she let him unwind her covers a little, and tug them back into the warm shape of their den, and once he did that, then she thought she might as well let him pull her close again. </p><p>“Sweet,” he said to her hair, to the soft skin of her neck, as he moved his hand high on her belly, his knuckles brushing the swell of one breast. It made her squirm, that unfair almost touch. “My sweet sister,” he said and he kissed her neck and put his hand to her breast without teasing, cupping it where her heart beat just below.</p><p>She sighed with slow deep pleasure. T’was Jon; he did not need words to understand her. “I want my kiss for true,” she told him, still complaining so he would not think he won. But even with the touch of his hand and the little lick of heat it gave her, she was mostly sleepy now and Arya thought that Jon knew it. </p><p>He said in her ear, soft and warm and good, “Later. Tomorrow. Tonight. Only stay right here with me, aye? Stay and sleep a little where I can hold you.”</p><p>She wanted to; she loved him. She shut her eyes to the star-bright, star-cold song of the winter winds as they knocked and knocked at the walls and shutters and begged to come in. They couldn’t, Arya knew; the room was too warm to let them, their den too strong, Jon’s body too solid and good against hers.</p><p>“Sleep,” Jon crooned to her ear, in that voice he had just for her, and after a while, she did.</p>
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  <p>O what a warm and darksome nest<br/>
Where the wildest things are hidden to rest!<br/>
It’s there that I’d love to lie and sleep,<br/>
Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep!<br/>
—Elinor Morton Wylie, <i>Winter Sleep</i></p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This has just the thinnest possible veneer of plot to hold it together, so... <br/>Does R+L=J? What won the war? Is Davos really Azor Ahai? You decide!</p><p>I aimed for three of the big tropes (sharing a bed, huddling for warmth, and angst--light angst, since I'm a weenie), and seeing as I typed this up so fast, desperately hope they worked out well together. Hope you feel better, tabacoychanel, and I hope the case of the twin ids is strong with this one! &lt;333</p><p>To my other readers, I hoped you liked this as well! Feel free to let me know either way: here, at my email (ao3throwaway27@gmail.com) or at my tumblr, mysticalmuddle.tumblr.com</p><p>Please stay safe, and I hope this adds a little needed tenderness in your life &lt;3333</p></blockquote></div></div>
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